Surgery a success for girl mauled by raccoon (with video)

ROYAL OAK — Her arm itches from the skin graft and she can’t swim or ride her bike, but 10-year-old Charlotte Ponce had no big complaints Wednesday as she was discharged from Beaumont Hospital.

“I’m OK and I have a nose,” Charlotte said about the eight-hour surgery she underwent a week ago.

The little girl from Spring Lake, which is near Grand Rapids, has had a lot of people rooting for her ever since her face was disfigured during an attack by a raccoon that was a family pet when she was 3 months old.

Her adoptive parents, Tim and Sharon Ponce, said they loved Charlotte from the moment they saw her. They left the decision of going through a series of operations to reconstruct part of her nose, her right ear and upper lip up to her.

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The time is right, the family said, adding they hope everything continues to go well so Charlotte can blend into the crowded hallways of middle school one day.

For now she is enjoying the last days of summer — except for activities that could lead to injury — before her home schooling begins again. She is pleased with how her face is healing.

“At first it was all puffy,” Charlotte said. “It looked like a turkey beak and cat nose together but the swelling goes down every day. Now it looks better.”

Her doctor, Kongkrit Chaiyasate, M.D., smiled nearby. He said Charlotte’s case is one of the most difficult he has undertaken but he sees a good outcome for her in the future.

“The goal is for a perfect nose, lip and ear,” he said. “I can’t guarantee it, but I can say I will treat her like my child.”

A surgical team is using Charlotte’s skin, bone and blood vessels to reconstruct her nose. Last week they took tissue with a blood supply from her forearm — it itches now — to create a lining for her nose. It was a very delicate procedure to make sure the repositioned tissue has adequate blood flow.

On Wednesday, Dr. Chaiyasate said he could feel a pulse on the skin flap covering the newly constructed nasal lining.

“The microsurgery has taken well,” he said. “I have no concerns at all.”

In about six weeks, the team will remove the skin flap and take tissue from Charlotte’s forehead to create the exterior of her nose.

Eventually, they will use skin from her lower lip to reconstruct her upper lip. The ear will be more complicated. The team will take part of Charlotte’s rib for the structure and tissue from her chest to cover it.

The family is up for it all.

“Charlotte is looking forward to getting it done,” Sharon Ponce said. “I love the way she is, but she wants to look like everyone else and she deserves the chance.”

The Ponces are related to Charlotte and her brother. They adopted the siblings when a court terminated the rights of the biological parents after the raccoon attack. The children were in the same room where a baby bottle was propped by Charlotte, leading to speculation that the raccoon wanted the milk and mauled her.

“One thing I hope people will learn from all of this is that raccoons aren’t pets,” Sharon Ponce said.

Charlotte lost her right ear and part of her nose and lip in the attack. If all goes well in the next two years, the physical scars of the surgeries will fade and Charlotte will only need fat injections as her face grows.

These days she is content playing with a white Care Bear named Fluffy and a doll named Lily.

“I never want to take it easy,” Charlotte said. “I always want to go out but I’m stuck inside. That’s what’s hard for me.”

Her parents are proud of their little girl and her enduring spirit.

“I asked her how it felt to have something in the middle of her face and she told me it’s kind of cool to look down and see a nose. She said, ‘It’s not perfect, but I’ve got a nose.’ God has blessed us.”